If the Tandu were the only ones to appear, it also meant be had likely seen his last sunrise. For in setting off a message bomb he'd almost certainly give away his position. The Tandu had clients who could psi-sniff even a thought, if they once caught the mental scent.

Tell you what, Ifni, he thought. You send someone else into this confrontation. I won't insist it be Thennanin. A Jophur fighting-planetoid will suffice. Mix things up here and I promise to say five sutras, ten Hail Marys, and Kiddush when I get home. Okay? I'll even dump some credits in a slot machine, if you like.

He envisioned a Tymbrimi-Human-Synthian battle fleet erupting out of the clouds, blasting the Tandu to fragments and sweeping the sky clear of fanatics. It was a lovely image, although he could think of a dozen reasons why it wasn't likely. For one thing, the Synthians, friendly as they were, wouldn't intervene unless it was a sure thing. The Tymbrimi, for that matter, would probably help Earth defend herself, but wouldn't stick their lovely humanoid necks too far out for a bunch of lost wolflings.

Okay Ifni, you lady of luck and chance. He fingered bomb number three. I'll settle for a single, beat-up, old Thennanin cruiser.

Infinity gave him no immediate answer. He hadn't expected one.

The thrumming seemed to pass right over his head. His hackles rose as the ship's strong-field region swept the area. Its shields screeched at his modest psi sense.

Then the crawling rumble began slowly to recede to his left. Tom looked to the west. The ragged clouds separated just long enough to display the Tandu cruiser — a light destroyer, he now saw, and not really a battleship — only a couple of miles away.

As he watched, the blunt appendage detached from the mother ship and began to drift slowly to the south. Tom frowned. That thing didn't look like the Tandu scout ships he was familiar with. It was a totally different design, stout and stolid, like…

The haze came together again, frustratingly, covering the two ships. Their muttering growl covered the muted grumblings of the nearby volcano.

Suddenly three brilliant streams of green light speared down from the clouds where Tom had last seen the Tandu ship, to hit the sea with flashing incandescence. There came a peal of supersonic thunder.

First he thought the Tandu were blasting the surface below. But a crackling bright explosion in the clouds showed that the destroyer itself was at the receiving end. Something high above the cloud deck was shooting at the Tandu!

He was too busy snatching up his gear to waste time in exultation. He kept his head averted, and so was spared blindness as the destroyer began firing actinic beams of antimatter at its assailant. Waves of heat scorched the back of his head and his left arm, as he stuffed the psi-bombs under his waistband and snapped his breather mask over his head.

The beams of annihilation made streaks of solar heat across the sky. He grabbed up his pack and dove into the hole he had earlier cleared in the thickly woven weeds.

The thunder suddenly muted as he splashed into a jungle of dangling vines. Straight shafts of flickering battlelight speared into the gloom through gaps in the weed.

Tom found he was automatically holding his breath. That didn't make much sense. The breather mask would not allow much oxygen to escape, but it would pass carbon dioxide. He started inhaling and exhaling as he grabbed a strong root for an anchor.

He found he was laboring for breath. With all the vegetation around him, he had expected the oxygen content to be high. But the tiny indicator on the rim of his mask told him that the opposite was true. The water was depleted compared to the normally rich brine of Kithrup's sea. The waving gill fins of the mask were picking up only a third as much oxygen as he would need to maintain himself, even if he stayed perfectly still.

In just a few minutes he would start to get dizzy. Not long thereafter he would pass out.

The battle roar penetrated the weed cover in a series of dull detonations. Shafts of brilliance shot into the gloom through openings in the leafy roof, one right in front of Orley. Even indirectly, the light hurt his eyes. He saw fronds just above the waterline, which had recently survived ashfall from a volcano, curl from the heat, turn brown, and fall away.

So much for the rest of my supplies, he thought.

So much for coming up for air.

He wrapped his legs around the thick root as he shrugged out of his backpack. He started rummaging through the satchel, looking for something to improvise. In the sharp shadows he negotiated the contents mostly by touch.

The inertial tracker Gillian had given him, a pouch of food bars, two canteens of "fresh" water, explosive slivers for his needier, a tool kit.

The air meter was turning an ominous orange. Tom wedged the pack between his knees and tore open the tool kit. He seized a small roll of eight-gauge rubber tubing. Purple blobs flickered on the edge of his field of vision as he used his sheath knife to cut a length of narrow hose.

He crammed one end through the mask's chow-lock. The seal held, but the contents of the tube sprayed at his mouth, making him gag and cough.

There was no time for finesse. He shimmied up the root to a point within reach of the hole in the weeds.

Tom pinched the tube below the other end, but bitter, oily water streamed from the tube as he straightened the coil. He averted his face, but swallowed a little anyway. It tasted foul.

The mask's demon-lock would purge the fluid, if too much didn't flood in.

Tom reached out and pushed the tube above the surface of the narrow pool, where the battle flashes sent shafts of light into the depths. He sucked hard at the hose, spitting out slime and a sharp metallic tang, desperately trying to clear it.

One of the searing blasts flashed, scalding his fingers below the waterline. He fought the instinct to shout or pull away from the pain. He felt consciousness begin to slip, and with it the will to hold his left hand into the searing heat.

He drew hard and at last was rewarded with a thin stream of dank air. Tom sucked frantically at the line. The hot, steamy air tasted of smoke, but it nourished. He exhaled into the mask, trusting it to hold the hard-won oxygen.

The aching in his lungs subsided and the agony of his hand took the fore. Just as he thought he couldn't hold it out there any more, the burning heat from above subsided, fading to a dull flickering glow in the sky.

A few meters away was another gap in the weeds, where he might be able to prop the tube between two thick roots without exposing himself. Tom took a few more breaths, then pinched the tube shut. But before he could prepare any further, a sharp blue light suddenly filled the water, brighter than ever, casting stark, blinding shadows everywhere. There was a tremendous detonation, then the sea began tossing him about like a rag doll.

Something huge had struck the ocean and set it bucking. His anchor root came free of its mooring, and he fell into a maelstrom of flailing vines.

The swell tore the backpack from him. He grabbed after it and caught the end of one strap, but something struck him in the back of the head, knocking him dizzy. The pack was snatched away into the noise and flashing shadows.

Tom curled into a ball, his forearms holding the rim of his mask against the whipping vines.

His first thought, on coming around, was a vague surprise that he was still breathing.

He thought the battle-storm was still going on, until he realized that the shaking he felt was his own body. The roar in his ears, was only a roar in his ears.

His throbbing left arm was draped over a thick horizontal stump. Scummy green water came up to his chin, lapping against the finned facemask. His lungs ached and the air was stale.